With preliminary PPM data released to New York City stations earlier this week, the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters (NABOB) is upset with the numbers for Urban and Hispanic stations, which saw a significant hit under the PPM. NABOB is calling for Arbitron to postpone its rollout plan for the PPM in new markets, until it corrects what the organization calls "significant flaws" with the PPM technology.

Jim Winston, Executive Director and General Counsel of NABOB said, "The New York City results were even worse for Urban and Hispanic radio than the Philadelphia and Houston numbers. The New York PPM numbers showed a substantial loss of audience for all stations, but the loss for the Urban and Hispanic formatted stations was far worse than for the market as a whole."

Winston continued, "NABOB has been meeting with Arbitron for months, and several of our members have been meeting with them for years, urging them to improve their PPM methodology. The New York results demonstrate that the limited changes that Arbitron claims to have implemented have done no good."

He added, "Declines this substantial raise serious issues about who and what is actually being measured and how the PPM methodology manipulates that data. Given Arbitron’s virtual monopoly, Arbitron is able to dictate tremendous fee increases, which it knows the stations must pay because there is no other ratings alternative. Therefore, Urban formatted, Hispanic formatted and minority owned stations -- formats and stations that have been the most negatively impacted by PPM to date -- are forced to pay increased fees for a service they know produces results that will likely be to their financial detriment. Arbitron has issued several months of PPM data, and it is clear, not just to our members, but to the radio industry as a whole, that this new technology is flawed. This is an industry problem, not just an Urban radio problem."